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Saturday, June 1, 2013

I don't mean to gloat, but the timing is right. The Secret Tree, my latest release, is #1 in the Amazon free store (June 1, 2013). I'd be glad to tell you how I did this again, but I've already shared what I do to get there.

What I want to point out is, there are thousands of books that are promoted every day as FREE, and several that are listed in BookBub.com every day. The thing is, only one book will be #1 at any given time. So how do I get to #1 on demand when there are literally thousands pushing for that spot? Heck, I was #22 before my BookBub promotion went live this afternoon.

Never heard of BookBub? I talk about this site and other top promotional sites for free books, tactics, and tips in the 5-Steps book.

If you have hit the top 100, or the #1 spot in your category, or the top 20 in the free store, you are probably only 1 or 2 steps away from hitting #1 overall. All you need is a few more details, secret tips, and you'll get there!

For the beginning indie author--and I was there, with no clue about book promotion--promotion is all about information.

Ah... that's the mystery. And that's what I write about in WINNING WITH KDP--the information needed to hit #1. This book holds nothing back. No details are left out. If you've written an excellent book, are getting good reviews (4 star or greater), and have a great cover and story, you can do this--or get awfully damn close!

The Top 100 is great. The Top 20 is better. And the Top 5 is awesome! But #1 is a guarantee #1 in all of your category top 100 lists and most likely will boost your book when it returns to the "Paid Store".

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Hitting #1 in anything is a good thing right? What about in the Amazon FREE store? And is there a difference between landing somewhere in the top 100 vs. hitting #1? Oh, yeah... big difference! Bigger pay off. More downloads. More reviews. More fans.

After working with KDP Select for over a year now, I've discovered what works for me, and I finally found the time to write about it. Yeah, I've been busy finishing my latest novel, The Secret Tree, and completing The 5 Steps book, to the detriment of my personal book marketing practices. But since you folks are my information springboard, I thought I'd give you a heads up on what I've learned about KDP--information previously unpublished.

I recently published a new book called, Winning With KDP Select: 5 Steps to Hitting #1 in the Amazon Free Store. I want to give this to you because of your support and because you deserve to know what works. But I also want to give you a little piece of this book before you get it for FREE on Amazon. The following information is NOT part of the 5 Steps.What follows are a few basic tips taken from the book. Maybe you haven't thought about this stuff before, or maybe you have. Either way, I hope this helps. But if you really want to know how to hit #1 on your free day, get this book. It will be free March 31st - April 1st.

There will only be 365 books that hit #1 in the Free store over the next 365 days... Will you be one of those authors? I hope so.

Here are a a couple things you want to think about if you are in KDP Select:

GOT FANS?

KDP Select offers authors one of the best
opportunities to gain new fans. How? By giving away your book and creating fans
addicted to your writing or series. If you are not bringing them into your
fold, you are making a big mistake. Be sure to include a link for your new fans
to join your email list or Facebook page at the end of your book. Grab ‘em
while you got ‘em, for tomorrow they’ll forget about you. A great site for FREE forms is jotform.com.

TIMING?

There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to
which day works best when running a KDP freebie, but I advise doing it at the
end of the month. Why? When your book returns to regular price, you not only
get the sales bounce that will hopefully come as a result of your
giveaway, but you can also capitalize on the Amazon Prime customer monthly free
downloads that are generally used when they are first available (the beginning
of each month).

FREQUENCY?

Try a two-day giveaway first. If you promote
heavily, two days should be enough to get you in the top 100, and will leave you with
3 more days to use over the next couple months. Remember, you only get 5-free
days for every 90-day period. But lately I’ve been using a 4-day freebie
schedule as long as I’m still in the top 20. I want to have good momentum for as long as possible. If you go "Free" for one day, and you did not promote heavily... you probably wasted that day.

NOTE: Hitting #1 in the Amazon
Free Kindle Store takes hard work and cash if you want to hit #1, but it is very much worth
the investment from my experience
(see 5 Steps Book).

WARNING:

My goal for you is to hit
#1, gain a TON of fans, and make some money afterward. If you want to hit #1,
spend the money. You have to tell as many people as you can that your book is free. Lazy promotion brings lazy results. Heavy promotion brings BIG results. Ultimately, if you don’t hit the top 20 when running a free book
promotion, you may have wasted your time and free days in terms of the final
ROI (Return On Investment). The exception is when you need more reviews---which
is another goal altogether. If you don’t spend the money on heavy book
promotion, the resulting sales may be minimum. However, you will likely get some reviews as a result of the giveaway. If that’s what you’re after,
then you may consider the promotion a success. If you want to make money, sell your other books, or grow your audience in a big way, you better plan to hit #1 and that's what the "5 Steps" book is all about.

So what's the "so what"? The so-what is I'm giving away Winning With KDP Select: 5 Steps to Hitting #1 in Amazon's Free Store on March 31st - April 1st. So, go get it. Find out what it takes to hit #1. Find out what the best sites are for promoting your free ebook, and find out how you can reach a targeted audience with hundreds of thousands of readers. Then, write a review, share the book, and get it into as many of your writer friends hands as possible.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

In Jan 2012 I worked with a couple authors who were having a hard time selling their books, and I helped one of them hit Amazon's Top-100 in the paid store, and the other came very close. Since that time, I have helped other authors evaluate the basic elements of their Amazon book page that are actually "UN-selling" their book.

Believe it or not, many new and not so new authors are scratching their heads, wondering why their book, as well written as it is, is not selling. They look at their monthly KDP reports, and their Amazon ranking and wonder what's going on. If that is you, the problem could be that you are on the inside looking in, and are not seeing the big picture. The following is an example of such an author.

Hayley Doyle came to me for help, and I found several issues right away. She gave me permission to share the following "book evaluation" so that others can learn. Put in context, Hayley had a literary agent, but a deal was never struck with a publisher, so she went ahead and self-published. Since that time she has sold very few copies. This is the only book that she has published on Amazon, although she has another she could publish. So... she's a first time author, with one book published. This is pretty common among indies, so I'm guessing there are some out there that will read this and apply the following analysis to their own page. I wrote this book page analysis about a week ago, and we talked today about a few steps she can take to begin "fixing" some of these issues. As you read this, I hope it helps you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hayley, After studying your book I have found several items that may contribute to poor sales. Some are obvious to me, but there may be other issues under the radar that we will have to discuss. WARNING: I'm very honest, which is what you paid for.

You do not have an author page set up. The author page is the first thing I look for because it's right at the top of your book page. You do not have one, and you should. Creating an author page is easy via Amazon Author Central. From AAC you can edit your book's description and add your author bio, pics, video, and social media links. Why is this important? Because with only one title listed on Amazon, readers have no idea why you are a credible choice or who you are, and have no way to follow you if they want to. The reader/writer relationship is more intimate today. They want to know about you, and want to follow you if they like your work.

You only have 1 "Like". This is a sign of popularity. Amazon readers do participate in this. Seeing only 1 like may actually be a turn off. You need to recruit friends and family to like your page as much as buying the book (I "Liked" your page btw). How does this help? Amazon factors a lot of elements from your book page into your ranking and internal Amazon promotion. The more likes, the more Amazon recognizes your book as a valuable/likable product. That goes for the the other social media buttons. Use them regularly. Tweet your book page. Facebook share your book page. Pinterest your book page. Every time you do this, Amazon registers another tick up in your book's popularity. Do these things impact your Amazon logarithm as much as a sale? No. But they help... especially if they come from different IP addresses (yeah, Amazon keeps track of that so no sense in using 10 different accounts from the same computer).

You only have 1 review. Reviews build trust. Too many bad reviews and sales will completely die. Lots of good reviews, and you have a far greater chance of selling. KDP Select is a great way to get more reviews. The only other option is to work your tail off, searching for the right reviewers and soliciting reviews from them, just like you have done with The Kindle Book Review--Great job! For additional info on getting reviews See my article on building a blog tour. After being published for nearly a year, having only one review on Amazon is a big red flag to me.

Price: $7.99 is way too high for a first time, self-published eBook--unless you are already famous or fresh off a reality tv show, or if you won an award as prestigious as The Bram Stoker Award. In addition, with the author's name as the publisher (your name), as listed in your book details, there is no hiding the fact that you are self-published. You don't have to, but it's not like a reader will know that your book is vetted by someone like Thomas Mercer, or Penguin and trust that the $7.99 is worth the cash. The length is right for the price But only IF you were traditionally published by a reputable publisher. I recommend selling no higher than $2.99 and maybe even 99¢ until you boost your ranking (where you will actually be seen). As a newer author, it is more important for you to grow your audience. So make the book affordable and include a link for readers to join an email list, or your facebook page. Put audience growth over profits, for now.

I have a unique philosophy on pricing. Read this article for my thoughts. No sense in re-writing this. In a nut shell, if you want to grow a reader fan base, don't over price your books. You may make $5.00 for every sale, but is it worth it when the cost is losing 100 readers for every five bucks? I'm all about gaining readers. That's my plan. Money comes with more titles, not an over priced rookie effort. There are those that will say, you are worth more, and that you shouldn't sell out to penny sales. Let them think that. I make $2,000 a month from 99¢ books, and that number grows with each new book I write. Eventually my stock price as an author will go up to match the size of my audience and I'll make much more then. New corporations start as penny stocks for a reason.

Cover: The Shirley Temple cover looks cute and all, but without the actual title and author name on the cover, I don't think the attempt at rectangular originality is going to work for you... yet another strike against you as a newbie... not in my eyes, but in the eyes of the reader. Look at the best selling books in your genre. They don't look like yours. Yours looks similar to the other non-fiction titles shown on your page. But your is not non-fiction?

Here's a book that one of your buyers purchased. It is not a historical fiction, and it is not selling all that much either.

Search results: When I do an Amazon search with the key words "Shirley Temple" the top three books are ranked as follows: 142,000+, and then 422,000+, 661,000+, and then your, which is fourth, which is good, but you can see that you are being pigeonholed into a niche category (with no sales). The 142,000 book is probably only selling a few copies a month (5-10) and that's in first place.

This tells me that if your book is a historical fiction, you need to lose the Shirley Temple stigma. It looks too much like a ST non-fiction title. There is no audience for this topic/theme. Here is the list of the top-100 historical fiction kindle books. This is where your cover needs to be if you want to sell in this genre. I suggest updating the ebook cover, maybe to match your print, although the print version still looks a little sub par because the image has low image quality and is blurred. (no offense, just comparing to the top 100).

Tags: I usually comment on "Tags" but I haven't seen them lately. Amazon may have stopped that. Tags were a way readers can help categorize books buy typing/adding key words that they thought were relevant to the content of the book. So nothing to say about that.

Category: I don't know what 2 subject categories you chose when you published. These are critical in helping readers find your content/subject. Let me know what those are when we talk.

Key Word Selection: When you published via KDP select you were given the option to chose up to 7 key words. Go to your KDP account and find out what you typed in this section. Then, along with your two categories you chose, type those words (individually) into the Amazon search bar, and jot down a note about the top one or two book covers, and make a note of their ranking. If after doing this with those 9 words, ask yourself if you are satisfied with the rankings of these books and if they look like the kind of titles that fit where you want to be... which is in the top 100 Historical Fiction category.

Not in KDP Select: I absolutely think this is necessary for newer authors... especially those with only one or two books... that means you. Read the attached article to see why I think that. I'm just now moving out of KDP (with reservations) but I have 7 working titles and one more to be released (although my first is pretty much a bomb... but that's how I learned).

Formatting: I see formatting issues on the first page in the "Look Inside" edition. This may also be a turn off for readers.

Okay, that's enough to take in I'm sure. Try not to be discouraged. This is a tough business and not all writers are fully prepared to be publishers just because they wrote a book. There's a lot to learn now, and after you think you have everything down (pub, marketing, design, and hot genre) it all changes and you have to learn something new. That's just the way this business works. Ultimately, you have to keep writing more books. Books sell books. I'll leave you with this article:Common Lies Self-Published Authors Believe. Read this as well before we talk. And on behalf of the publishing industry as a whole, I apologize that this is so overwhelming and ultimately frustrating. But in order to be successful, writing/publishing must be a labor of love.

Now, let me know if seeing this book page evaluation helps you!

If you think you could benefit from this type of evaluation or some of my other author services, check out my gigs on fiverr.com

Friday, December 21, 2012

So you hate that you need this mystical thing called an author platform just to sell your books, huh? Well I've got some good news for you. You can actually grow your platform in 3 easy steps!

What I'm about to show you will require a personal investment of time and finances, but it can be worth it if you do this regularly. I know it works because I've done it in the past and have had success almost every time--almost every time, because not everything goes as planned, and because I can be lazy sometimes. But I am doing this right now and seeing excellent results as we speak.

What is the trick? It's called a "Reader Role Call" promotion. You might also want to call it a multi-platform giveaway. This trick is something I do in addition to a KDP select giveaway (for details see previous 2 posts), but when I do, I see excellent KDP Select results. More importantly, I grow my reader base by gaining social media followers.

I'm currently doing this with 84 other authors at The Kindle Book Review. We are giving away a Kindle Fire and two $100 Amazon gift cards. I've joined forces with these authors and Digital Book Today, but I've done this all by myself recently and it worked great then, too. When going solo, I usually give away print copies of one or more of my books, which requires a much smaller investment, but will also garner less interest than a major giveaway (Kindle, Nook, iPad).

Results?
At the time of this writing, I've personally gained nearly 50 subscribers at The KBR, and about the same on Twitter and Facebook in the last 24 hours, and this is just the start of a 2-week promotion! This promotion has had over 20,000 entries in the last 36 hours, so the authors involved are getting a lot of exposure. And my sales? They've ticked up a little, but that's what I expected--just a little. Promos like these need to be tied in with layered marketing in other platforms to see large sales spikes. The thing to remember is a promotion like this is more for growing an author platform, which is a long term relationship, and does not always lead to immediate sales.

The general idea of the Reader Roll Call is to give something away by using Rafflecopter as the source of generating a raffle/drawing to automatically choose the winner. Rafflecopter is really cool because you have lots of options in terms of creating ways for readers to gain entries/points, and the ones with the most points naturally have a greater chance of winning.

So what are the 3 easy steps?#1. Decide what you want to give away, and if you want to join forces with other authors. If you go solo, try giving away a print copy of your book during a KDP free promo to help spread the word about you and your books. This will draw attention to your freebie if you tie it in right. Also, if you include other authors, understand that this is your show, and you must work hard to get the others everything they need like links, ideas, and dates. You have to make sure everything comes together.

#2. Decide where you will host/publicize the promotion and how you will reach your audience. When running a promo like this in the past, I've listed the promotion directly on my Amazon book page by adjusting the text via my Amazon Author Central account. But the real trick is to incorporate the giveaway across your entire online platform, including Facebook, Twitter, your blog, or website. And the better trick is if you work with other authors, and everyone contributes to the promotion, you can gain an even greater reach, and piggy back on their reading audience as well. Another tick is to give away a copy of your book(s) on Goodreads at the same time, and link the giveaway to your REAL promotion, the one with the Raffecopter giveaway, or your freebie if doing a KDP giveaway as well. The point is, before you start, you have to commit to how deep you want to go, and then follow through and do everything you said you would. I'm also doing two other promotions like this with other groups of authors during the holidays, and it stands to reason that the more my name is seen across the Internet, the greater chance I have of gaining followers and readers.

#3. Create your Rafflecopter form. Creating a Rafflecopter form is easy and can include many upgrades if you plan to use this often. I use the basic form and still have the option to have the reader/registrant follow my twitter account (@TweetTheBook), my Facebook account, subscribe to my blog(s), and "Like" my author page on FB. And this, my friends, is the best part about this type of promotion; it draws readers into your author platform, and that's enough for me, for now. But one important thing to remember: when using Rafflecopter, the actual raffle sign-up box will not go live until the start date that you choose, so you have to make sure everything is correct when it does go live. I have had some problems with them linking facebook pages. In that case I have replaced, for example, an authors FB link with his/her Twitter handle.

A few points to remember, regarding author promotion:

Authors with one book will have a more difficult time selling/promoting (unless they are lucky). Always remember that, "The best marketing plan for a newer author is to write more good books."

A social media audience is more receptive to receiving something free than a constant barrage of self-promotion from you. They are also more willing to share your giveaway with their friends if they know there is no "catch". And there shouldn't be a catch. Giving your book(s)/something away is a win-win, because if you write great books, your new readers will be more willing to buy your other/next book---that's just how most people are--they appreciate kindness, and in general, want to return it.

Expect complaints. Although most people are good hearted, there are some that you cannot please. Be gracious. And offer exceptional service, even to the grumps out there.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Questions are great. I love questions. Sometimes I learn more when someone asks me about a topic that I am passionate about. And yesterday a writer friend asked a very pointed question.
This is exactly what she asked:

"Jeff why is it better for authors with fewer books to stay on KDP Select? Sorry, but I don't get it." - anonymous

Well, naturally I told her to come to The Writing Bomb for details. But I also typed the following reply with my phone… talk about an auto-correct nightmare! Anyway, I realized that if one person asks a question than there are probably dozens more with the same quandary.

Anyway, here's my answer to her question:

"Why is it better for newer authors to stay with KDP select?"

The reason is simple. No one knows who you are, and no other online book retailer will help promote you like Amazon... hands down.

Take any first time indie or small press author, drop their book into all online ebook stores and they will all sink to the bottom unless that author continues to write book after book, and promote heavily, and still may not sell much. Most new authors continue to promote heavily, trying to force their dream of mass sales and book signings, waiting, hoping for the magic to happen, and it rarely does.

Why?
Because no one knows who you are! Not you personally, but the rhetorical you, the unknown author, the first timer who isn't famous, who doesn't have 50,000 twitter fans, a platinum album, or staring in a sitcom.

Amazon knows this, and so in order to create a marketplace where their author's are committed to them for the long haul, they created a system (that was already in place and effective) and offered it as an "on-demand" promotional tool for author's who publish exclusively with Amazon (KDP) -- a reward if you will.

The reward is on demand promotion (1-5 days to sell your book(s) for free, renewable every 90 days) that can be targeted and controlled. It's the perfect answer to the unknown author. The author can give away thousands of copies (15,000+ is a good free promo result, and my average for my novels, a drop in the bucket in terms of millions of kindle readers).

But why would an author want to give away so many books? Simple. When you give that many copies away, two things happen (the magic):

1.Readership Explosion: With KDP Select, a new author can grow a following at a rate never before possible, and will garner far more reviews than with sales that trickle in under normal circumstances. How is this possible? Visibility, my friend… visibility in the free store. Heck, I even sell more print copies during a freebie promo.

2. Consistent Sales Bump: Amazon treats free downloads like sales, thereby placing the author's book cover across their site in places like the "customers who bought this also bought" section below other books purchased by those who downloaded the free book, and often in the same genre. The residual promotion that Amazon provides is of course relative to the number of books downloaded during the free promotion.

Here's the trick (well, one of them): Do this enough times and you start to target your audience because your book is consistently landing in your pre-selected category lists in the free store. Then, when you get the visibility from being in a category list, your sales can grow organically within days of returning to the "paid" store.

Example: Twisted Vengeance garnered 18,427 downloads in my Sept. 2012 freebie promo. I scheduled the promo for 3 days, but kept it going one more day because I was #5 in the free store for 2 days straight and didn't want to stop the momentum. Two days later, Twisted was ranked #800 something in the paid store, selling very well. I raised my price back to $2.99 and made a few bucks.

Now, what just happened besides giving away 18,000 books?

1. Audience Growth: I gained a lot more readers from that promotion, as reflected in my post freebie reviews, and Facebook likes that came in after the promo. Not everyone who downloaded the book will read it, or like it for that matter, and that's okay. But you can be sure, there is a greater probability that I will gain a higher number of fans with 18K downloads than with 500 organic purchases.

2. Additional Sales Lift: The wheels that started spinning during my free promo continued after the "sale". NOTE: Free books don't add as much weight in Amazon's algorithms as a paid book (hence hitting #5 in free store vs. #800 in the paid), but that's okay, too.
Amazon rewards sales with visibility. So if you continue to promote with KDP Select every 90 days, getting that regular sales bump, and adjusting your price with the ebb and flow of your ranking (99¢ when your sales are down, and $2.99 or more when sales are up), your sales should continue to grow -- even more so if you continue to publish additional books. Why? Because every bump throws your book on more book pages, and then you fade, but then you bump up. Long term (1 year for me), it is working like a healthy looking Stock Market graph… slowly rising with dips and spikes, but consistently increasing sales.

KDP Select gives you free promotion from the largest book retailer in the world! And the results improve with every new book. Why? Because not only can I lift my ranking using price decreases as an incentive (promotional tool), but I can also promote with targeted free days with multiple titles. That gives me two methods of attracting readers with every 90-day cycle. So if you have 2 books, that's 4 free promotional tools. If you have 3 books, that's 6 free promotional opportunities, and so on.

Like I always say, "books sell books". Unfortunately, many freshman Author's think their book will sell on the merit of quality. Sometimes that happens with luck, but rarely. There are over a million kindle books now. A million! Geesh!

Do you see the advantage of hitting the top #20 or #100 in the free store? Thanks to KDP Select, I have sat above, beside, and directly under Stephen King and Koontz. But get this, I am a nobody in terms of the world wide publishing industry. The name Jeff Bennington means very little to the vast majority of readers, and yet my "free book" promotions have placed my name and book covers in places I never thought possible.

This program can market a relatively unknown like a big name author. With KDP Select, I beat out Heather Graham (Big time author in ghost category) often, because my promotions with KDP Select help boost me up there with the big boys and girls. This program can truly be the great equalizer for new authors, even if you only have one amazing book. And no other platform, with the exception of Kobo is doing anything like this.

Amazon has so many promotional tools to help market authors, it isn't funny! Take a look at some of these marketing tools they use: Bestsellers List, Hot New Release list, Movers and Shakers, Top Rated lists, Gift Idea lists, Top-100 Category lists, Tags, "If you like" lists, "So you want to" lists, and Top Rated Author List (New: I'm currently #44 in Horror).

The truth is… if you have 10 titles it's easier for readers to find you. And an author with that many books has probably grown his or her platform over the course of time anyway. But when you only have one or two titles, like most authors out there, KDP Select is the only program that can accelerate the long, time draining process of finding your readers.

Other sites list your book(s) for sale, but when you partner with the biggest book retailer in the world, and they are willing to help you find your audience, and sell your books, you get a much higher return, relative to what the other stores can do for you. And like all programs, there are a variety of variables that can impact one's success (cover art, reviews, product description, sample, book length, etc). And of course, there is always the exception, and a time for an author to pull out when they have outgrown the program. But in general, after one year with Select, I'm still very excited about KDP Select's power to promote.